Al-Fasr is also a skilled fighter pilot who learned his craft in the U.S. He has laid a deadly trap for Maxwell and the warriors of the Reagan Strike Group. The danger lies not only in the hills of Yemen. Lurking beneath the surface of the Arabian Sea is an ex-Russian Kilo submarine, whose mission is to sink the Reagan...

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Acts of Vengeance - Robert Gandt

It sounded like a distant storm.

Colonel Jamal Al-Fasr pulled the Land Rover over to the soft shoulder of the highway. He rolled the window down and cocked his head, listening.

There it was again. A familiar rumble. An alarm sounded in Al-Fasr’s mind.

Shakeeb, in the opposite seat, looked over in surprise. Why are we stopping, Colonel?

Al-Fasr ignored the sergeant. He opened the door and stepped out on the sand. He peered eastward, in the direction of the sea. Heat waves shimmered from the surface of the desert. The barren landscape seemed devoid of any sign of life.

Then he saw them. A wave of dread swept over Al-Fasr.

They were low, no more than two thousand feet above the desert. They looked like killer angels, flying in a loose combat spread. Al-Fasr tried to count them. A dozen, perhaps more. He recognized the sleek profiles, the canted vertical stabilizers: F/A-18 Hornets. Their long gray noses were pointed toward Abu Dhayed.

Al-Fasr felt his heart beating like a hammer. He squinted against the glare of the low morning sun, scanning the horizon. They wouldn’t send fighters in low unless—

There. In the distance, just crossing the shoreline. He could pick them out, dark blobs pulsating like apparitions in the heat waves. He could hear the faraway beat of the whirling blades—Whop Whop Whop—reverberating over the sand hummocks.

CH-53s, he guessed, and they would be filled with battle-ready marines. He stared in disbelief. Where had they come from? How did they know?

He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes past seven in the morning, exactly fifty minutes before the overthrow of the Emir’s government. Al-Fasr had planned each minute detail, orchestrated every movement, assigned each duty of his clandestine force. It would be a lightning-quick transition from a feudal administration to a modern Arab state.

Something was wrong. The coup had been compromised. The Americans were in Abu Dhayed, and it could only be for one reason: To save the Emir.

He reached inside the Land Rover and yanked the cell phone out of its cradle. After several rings he heard the voice of his younger brother, Akhmed. In the background he heard the crackle of small arms fire.

They have the building surrounded, said Akhmed.

Al-Fasr muttered a curse. His brother’s forty-man garrison was stationed in a downtown warehouse, poised to move out.

Who?

The Royal Guard. Armored cars, tanks, at least a hundred troops. Akhmed’s voice sounded desolate. How did they know?

I don’t know. But you must hold out. Naguib will be there soon with his brigade. There was no point in telling Akhmed the truth—that American troops were in Abu Dhayed. Naguib and his brigade were probably trapped.

For several seconds Akhmed didn’t reply. Al-Fasr heard the sound of his brother’s raspy breathing and, in the background, more gunfire.

Then a succession of explosions. They’re using grenades, said Akhmed. I must go.

Fight the bastards. We are on the side of the people.

It looks bad, Jamal.

You must hold out.

"Inshallah. If God wills it. Goodbye, brother."

Goodbye, Akhmed.

Al-Fasr stood for a moment beside the Land Rover, stunned by the turn of events. His eyes remained focused on the incoming helicopters. The sound of the beating blades rolled across the desert like drumbeats from hell.

Think! What should he do? His main force, commanded by his Air Force colleague, Major Naguib Shauqi, was bivouacked at the Bu Hasa armory, five kilometers from the downtown headquarters. With armored cars, they were poised to race down the main highway to Abu Dhayed where they would seize the radio station and the military command headquarters. At the same time the secondary force, led by Akhmed, would smash through the gates of the royal palace and take the Emir and his family into custody. The plan depended on the Emirate’s regular army troops perceiving that their position was untenable. They would lay down their arms and offer no resistance. Like most of the populace, the common soldiers had no love for the Emir.

Al-Fasr tried to imagine what had gone wrong. There could be only one possibility: Someone had betrayed them.

He had no doubt that Naguib’s brigade at the armory, like Akhmed’s downtown garrison, was surrounded by the Emir’s soldiers.

He called Naguib’s cell phone. After a dozen rings, he replaced the phone in its cradle. Grimly he peered again at the warbirds swooping down on Abu Dhayed. If Naguib and his brigade were cornered or captured, the coup was doomed.

Akhmed was doomed.

They were all doomed.

Al-Fasr wondered how his brother would be treated by the Emir’s soldiers. He shoved the image from his mind. It would be better if Akhmed were killed in battle. The Emir’s Royal Guard was legendary for its viciousness.

Suddenly Al-Fasr remembered his parents.

His father disapproved of his sons’ political activities, but he had not interfered. Al-Fasr’s father had a special loyalty to the Emir, with whom he had gone to school and under whose protective umbrella the Al-Fasr family had accumulated great wealth.

Which was why Al-Fasr had kept his father ignorant of the approaching coup. Though the family would be exposed to a brief danger, the coup would be a fait accompli before any retribution could be taken against the family.

You were wrong. He cursed himself for his misjudgment.

Al-Fasr jumped back inside the Land Rover. In a flurry of sand he wheeled the vehicle around and sped back down the highway.

<>

He kept the Jet Ranger low, skimming the floor of the desert.

Perched in the left seat, Shakeeb had the AR-15 pointed out the open hatch. For over twenty kilometers they hugged the ground, avoiding the roads that radiated like veins from the center of Abu Dhayed.

The Al-Fasr family compound lay to the west of the city, in an irrigated glade with grass and a palm-covered hillside that sloped behind the main building. Instead of using the helo pad next to the compound, Al-Fasr set the Jet Ranger down on a flat stretch of desert that was shielded from the compound by the hill.

Moving a few steps at a time, they approached the back entrance of the main building. Al-Fasr drew the SIG Sauer semi-automatic from its holster. With a nod of his head, he motioned for Shakeeb to follow. Holding the pistol in front of him, he entered the large hall that extended through the center of the house. The hall was strewn with debris—smashed furniture, paintings torn from the walls, shards of broken vases. The only untouched object in the room was a framed photograph of the Emir, smiling down on the room.

We are too late. They had already been here. Al-Fasr took a deep breath and forced himself to remain calm. He had long ago forsaken his religious upbringing, but now he wished that he could summon help. Allah, I beseech you. . .

He opened the door to the family sitting room.

More debris. Carpets, smashed sculptures, broken lamps lay like rubble from an earthquake. His eyes swept the ruins, praying that he wouldn’t find what he most dreaded.

He saw something on the floor—a hand protruding from behind the slashed leather sofa. Al-Fasr scrambled through the rubble, around the sofa. He gazed down on the woman’s body. Her lifeless eyes stared straight upward.

Mother! He knelt beside her body. Blood oozed from a single, purple hole in her forehead. Her hand was still warm, her fingers clenched in a fist. For nearly a minute he remained with her, his chest heaving in sobs.

He felt Shakeeb’s hand on his shoulder. They may still be here, Colonel. We must leave.

He nodded and rose. Shakeeb was right. He could not help her, but the others—his father, his sister Aliyah. Perhaps. . .

He didn’t have far to look. In the doorway to the kitchen, he nearly stumbled over a body. It was his sister. Like her mother, the young woman had been executed, killed by a single shot to the forehead.

Al-Fasr dropped to his knees, overcome by his grief. He kissed his sister’s dead cheek. He clutched her body, rocking her as if she were a sleeping child.

As through a fog, Shakeeb’s voice came in a low whisper. I heard something. Someone is in the hall.

He rose and picked his way through the debris. Around the edge of the kitchen door he saw a man in a camouflage army uniform. He wore the black beret of an officer in the Emir’s Royal Guard. His back was turned, and he seemed to be studying an object on the tiled floor.

The officer sensed their presence behind him. He whirled around.

In a crouch, Al-Fasr held the SIG Sauer in both hands, the sights superimposed over the officer’s chest. He waited. He wanted the man to recognize him.

An expression of alarm spread over the officer’s face, and his hand went for his holstered sidearm.

Al-Fasr waited.

The officer’s pistol was clear of his holster, coming upward—

Kaploom! The nine-millimeter Parabellum round struck the officer in the middle of his chest. He reeled backwards, then dropped. His weapon clattered to the floor beside him. Spraddle-legged, he braced himself with one hand, clutching his chest with the other.

Al-Fasr strode over to him. He knelt and picked up the officer’s pistol. The man stared back up at him, his face contorted with pain.

As Al-Fasr rose, he noticed for the first time the object on the floor, three feet away, that had captured the officer’s attention. Around it spread a crimson pool of blood. Al-Fasr’s breath left him in a single gasp.

He was looking into the eyes of his father’s severed head.

In the next instant, Jamal Al-Fasr, the Yale-educated eldest son of a cultured Abu Dhayed family, was transformed into a madman. His lungs filled with a burning fury. A primal scream erupted from him.

He seized the AR-15 assault rifle from the petrified Shakeeb. With his thumb he slid the fire selector to automatic. He shoved the muzzle into the wounded officer’s face.

The man’s eyes widened. Please, have mercy. . .

Al-Fasr held the trigger down. Brrraaaaaapppppppp!

The officer’s head exploded in a gelatinous spray of bone and brain matter. Al-Fasr kept the trigger depressed. He continued firing until the magazine was empty.

Smoke spewed from the heated barrel. Al-Fasr’s chest heaved up and down, the breath coming in hoarse gasps. His trousers and boots were splattered with blood and bits of flesh. On the floor the Royal Guard officer’s body jerked and twitched. The remains of his skull looked like a shattered melon.

Gently, Shakeeb removed the weapon from Al-Fasr’s hands. He extracted the empty magazine and shoved in a fresh one. They heard the gunfire, Colonel. We must leave.

Al-Fasr remained for another moment, staring at his father’s head. The sightless eyes gazed back at him.

<>

The Jet Ranger dipped its nose and skimmed over the hill behind the compound. Al-Fasr saw a vehicle coming — a desert-camouflaged four-wheeler, not a Rover like those used by the Emirate Defense Force. This was a larger vehicle, wider and lower to the ground.

An HMMWV—a Hummer—not more than fifty meters away.

Americans. Too late to avoid them. Would they open fire?

Al-Fasr hunched in his seat, braced for a burst of machine gun fire.

None came. As the helo swept past the Hummer, Al-Fasr locked gazes with the occupant of the right seat. The man wore full battle gear, including the Wehrmacht-looking helmet and a sidearm. He was an officer, Al-Fasr guessed, probably Marine Corps. They had come not to lead the assault, just to support the Emir’s cowardly Royal Guard troops.

Al-Fasr felt a wave of hate overcome him. They helped kill my family. For an instant he considered swinging back, ordering Shakeeb to open fire with the AR-15.

No, the helicopter was too easy a target. He would take his revenge at another time. Another way.

He pointed the nose of the Jet Ranger southeastward, toward the coast. They would remain inland from the shoreline and fly over the mountainous southern border of the emirate. During his planning he had established the contingency base in the high country of Yemen. That was where he and the Sherji—his militia of freedom fighters—would go if the coup somehow failed.

Now the coup had failed.

As the Jet Ranger sped across the low plateau, Al-Fasr tried to assemble the pieces of his shattered plan. One persistent thought burned in his mind like an ember: Someone had betrayed them. No matter how long it took, he would find the traitors. When he did, he would know how to deal with them.

Someone had summoned the Americans. Who? It had to be the Emir himself. Sheik Al-Fatiyah, the fat old Emir, was a man of meager intelligence whose appointed successor, his son, was even more fat and unintelligent. Though the emirate possessed vast oil reserves, the Al-Fatiyah family’s idea of governance had been consistent: Squander every dinar on family palaces in Abu Dhayed, villas in Switzerland, yachts in Cannes. And ignore the discontented masses who hated them.

As an Air Force officer, Al-Fasr’s burning desire was to restore the emirate’s military. Under the Emir, the defense force had become flabby and obsolete, dependent on the benevolent shield of the American military. He intended to devote some of the nation’s wealth to modern weapons, freeing the country from the onerous patronage of the United States.

The Americans. Where had they come from? Saudi Arabia? Oman? How had they entered the emirate without his intelligence sources reporting their presence?

As he thought about it, he realized it should be no surprise that the Americans would support the Emir. They were addicted to cheap gasoline. Stupid and corrupt as the Emir was, he could be counted on to maintain the flow of oil.

Five miles from the shoreline, Al-Fasr banked the Jet Ranger to the west and headed for the high mountainous ridge that defined the emirate’s southern border. The vegetation became more sparse. The moon-like mountainscape showed only sprigs of sage, an occasional scrawny shrub.

The turbine engine of the helicopter labored as they ascended the barren ridge. At the summit, 1500 meters above sea level, they had a view that extended a hundred kilometers into the sprawling desert plateau of Yemen. To the left, far below, the rocky salient of the Arabian peninsula jutted into the sea.

Out in the gulf, an object caught his eye.

Thirty miles distant. There was no mistaking the distinctive gray flat-topped silhouette.

An aircraft carrier.

In a flash, it came to him. The helicopters, the Marines, the Hornet fighters. He knew where they had come from.

He stared at the great death ship on the horizon. He thought of his father, beheaded for no reason except that his son was the Emir’s enemy. His mother and sister, slaughtered like cattle.

A hatred more profound than anything he had ever felt took possession of Jamal Al-Fasr. He gazed at the ghostly form of the warship. In a voice too low to be heard over the thrum of the helicopter, he said, I promise, Father. I will kill them.

Chapter Two

Incident in Dubai

USS Ronald Reagan

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

1045, Saturday, 15 June, The Present

Incoming fighters.

Josh Dunn looked up from the flight deck and saw them—sleek gray shapes, low on the water, almost invisible in the morning haze. He could make out the long pointed noses, the missiles mounted on each stubby wing tip. They were aimed directly at the carrier’s six-story island superstructure.

Dunn said nothing.

He kept his eyes on the fighters as they flashed across the harbor. The sun glinted from their wings. As the jets approached, the combined thunder of their engines rolled over the water, gathering momentum like a summer storm.

The timing was perfect. As the four F/A-18 Super Hornets swept down the length of the flight deck, the band swung into a spirited rendition of Anchors Aweigh. Every head in the crowd, even the assembled air wing officers standing at parade rest, turned to follow the low-flying formation.

Vice Admiral Joshua Chamberlain Dunn nodded in approval. In his long career, he had endured dozens of these change of command ceremonies, including several of his own. This one was special. The young Navy commander standing at the podium in his service dress white uniform, though not Dunn’s own son, might as well have been.

Prior to the official change of command, it had been his honor to pin on Sam Maxwell—Dunn had never gotten used to his Navy call sign, Brick—the Distinguished Flying Cross. In a coordinated air strike against targets in Iraq, Maxwell was credited with destroying a major weapons assembly plant at Latifiyah. On the same mission he shot down a MiG-29 flown by a legendary Iraqi squadron commander.

Now Commander Maxwell was taking command of a strike fighter squadron, the VFA-36 Roadrunners, based aboard USS Ronald Reagan. The ceremony was brief, deliberately so because the outgoing skipper, Commander John Killer DeLancey, was absent. DeLancey was listed as killed in action during the same strike over Iraq.

A crowd of nearly two hundred occupied seats on the flight deck, facing the podium. On a raised dais were the guests of honor—Vice Admiral Dunn, Rear Admiral Tom Mellon, who commanded the Reagan Battle Group, and the ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, an ebullient Californian named Wayne Halaby.

Maxwell took the podium and greeted the guests. Out of respect for the deceased former commanding officer, he omitted the customary speech new skippers usually delivered. In keeping with naval tradition, he read the orders giving him command of Strike Fighter Squadron Thirty-six. Then he turned to the Reagan’s Air Wing Commander, Captain Red Boyce. Sir, I am ready to assume command.

He and Boyce exchanged salutes. The officers turned to the two admirals, Dunn and Mellon, who stood at the edge of the dais. Again they saluted, and the admirals returned the gesture.

The ritual was complete.

A cluster of officers and guests gathered around the new squadron skipper, shaking his hand and clapping his shoulder. Josh Dunn watched from the edge of the group, thinking again how proud he had always been of young Maxwell. He was a good-looking kid, Dunn remembered, but now that he was nearly forty, he had a more mature look —that dark mustache, tall, rangy build, piercing blue eyes. He was the kind of son Harlan Maxwell ought to be immensely proud of—if he had any sense.

Dunn walked over to Maxwell and clasped the younger man’s hand. You’re going to be a great skipper, Sam.

I’m flattered that you came, Admiral. That was the protocol between them. In public, it was Admiral. In private, he had always been Josh.

Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away, said Dunn. I just wish your old man was here to see this.

Maxwell nodded. He could have been.

You two have got to patch this up.

Maybe someday. We don’t seem to be ready for that yet.

Dunn shook his head. Admiral Harlan Maxwell was his best friend, academy classmate, and naval colleague of nearly forty years. He was also a pigheaded fool, thought Dunn.

He didn’t even remember the exact cause of the rift between the elder Maxwell and his son, and he doubted that they did either. It was one of many such clashes the father and son had over the years. They were two bulls in a pasture. For some reason, they couldn’t acknowledge the underlying love and respect each had for the other.

Dunn reminded himself to talk to Sam about that.

How about joining us for lunch in Dubai? said Dunn. The ambassador and Admiral Mellon and I are going to the Carlton.

Maxwell nodded across the deck to where a tall, chestnut-haired girl stood watching them. She was wearing a summer dress, a silk scarf at her throat. With the breeze ruffling the light dress, Dunn could see that she had a smashing figure.

She saw him and smiled.

Thanks, Admiral, but I promised the lady I’d spend the day with her. We have some catching up to do.

Dunn grinned. So that was the girl he had heard about. Claire Phillips. She was a network television reporter assigned in the Middle East. According to the scuttlebutt, she and Maxwell were on their way to being an item.

You’re released on one condition. He took Maxwell by the arm and steered him across the deck. You have to introduce me to the lady.

<>

Hassan Fayez and Yousef Mudrun watched in astonishment as the four jet fighters swooped over them. For a terrifying instant, Hassan thought that the warplanes were coming for them.

Not until the jets were gone did he realize that it must be some sort of demonstration. Another American show of power.

The two men looked like any of the hundreds of boat people afloat that morning. Their ancient lateen-rigged dhow, with its large triangular sail, drifted in the outer harbor. For all appearances, the two sailors were fishing or perhaps diving on one of the sunken wrecks at the bottom of the channel.

Through his binoculars, Hassan studied the great gray mass of the American ship, three kilometers in the distance. They were close enough. He had been told the American Navy maintained a screen of surveillance boats around their flagship. He was sure, too, that they deployed sensors and weapons to discourage underwater intruders. It would not be easy to attack the Reagan, even though the vessel lay at anchor.

Looking at the immense size of the aircraft carrier, noting the array of guns and missiles and the massive deck filled with warplanes, Fayez felt a wave of fear pass through him. Why had he volunteered for this mission? The answer came to him immediately. He hadn’t. The Leader himself had given him this assignment. There was no alternative. To refuse the Leader’s order meant an abrupt departure from this life.

Is it time yet? asked Yousef. He, too, was a new recruit. Like Hassan, he had been assigned by the Leader.

Hassan trained the glasses on the blunt aft end of the ship. A stairway descended from the fantail to a boarding platform where a boat was moored. Yes, he said. They’re leaving.

He lay down the binoculars. Rig the sail.

Yousef scrambled across the deck, swinging the suspended mast around so that it blocked any view of the dhow’s deck from the ship across the harbor. The triangular sail hung like a curtain in the windless air. That was the way Hassan wanted it. He would be concealed behind the sail. Bring up the launcher, he said.

Yousef ducked into the open hatch, then came back up with the Chinese-made weapon. Hassan busied himself affixing the launcher tube to the shoulder mount. Then he attached the reel of guidance wire to the base plate of the weapon. He tried to screw the threaded end of the wire to its connector on the missile but he was unable. His fingers were trembling.

Be careful, said Yousef. You’ll blow us up.

Shut up. I know what I’m doing. Hassan had performed this task only once before, practicing with an inert round while the Leader observed his performance. It had been easy then.

Now it wasn’t easy. The live round weighed several kilos more than the inert dummy. He drew a deep breath, clenched and unclenched his fist, then tried again. This time he succeeded. The threads caught, and the wire was attached to the connector. There. It’s done.

He peered across the channel. He had assembled the weapon just in time. Raising the launcher to his shoulder, he braced the tube across the lowered mast. He aimed the weapon toward his target.

<>

From the fantail, Brick and Claire watched the admiral’s gig pull away from its mooring. At the helm of the polished wooden boat stood a boatswain’s mate in white uniform. Standing on the aft deck were Dunn, Halaby, the ambassador, and the soon-to-be-relieved Reagan Battle Group Commander, Tom Mellon.

Dunn waved from the deck as the polished wooden boat turned and pointed its bow toward the Dubai shoreline. Brick and Claire watched the boat churn across the Dubai channel. By the time it was a mile away, they could still see the tiny figure of Dunn standing on the aft deck next to the coxswain.

He tries to act gruff, said Claire, but that old sailor loves you.

Josh is like a father to me.

What about your real father? Why isn’t he here?

Brick didn’t answer right away. He continued watching the boat as it headed into the choppy waters of the channel. "

The reporter in Claire wanted to know more. She was about to ask another question, then she stopped. She saw something in Brick’s face. He was staring at the harbor. Squinting against the morning sun, she followed his gaze out over the water.

Then she saw it.

It looked like a fast-moving bird, zigzagging low over the water, gathering speed as if it were seeking something. The object, whatever it was, seemed to be trailing a plume of fire.

Oh, no! she heard Brick say.

Claire didn’t know what it was, but her instinct told her it was something bad. In the next three seconds, she knew she was right.

The low-flying object struck the gig amidships. The main fuel tank exploded, and the boat erupted in an orange ball of flame. Fragments of teak and mahogany and brass and human bodies cascaded into the morning sky.

Several seconds after the flash, the sound of the explosion reached the Reagan.

Stunned, Claire stared at the cataclysm. Pieces from the ruined boat were raining like shrapnel back into the water. My God, what happened?

As a journalist she had seen the aftermath of war and terrorism. Never had she witnessed such violence close up.

Maxwell was shaking his head. His hands clenched the steel rail. No idea. Some kind of missile.

A klaxon horn was going off. From the ship’s public address loudspeakers, a voice boomed. General quarters! General quarters! This is not a drill! All hands man your battle stations!

What does that mean? Claire asked.

"We’re going to combat readiness. Whoever fired that missile may be shooting at the Reagan. He grabbed her arm and hauled her away from the rail. We’re going below decks, down to the ready room.

From across the water they heard a siren wailing. On the Reagan’s flight deck, the blades of the SAR helicopter, a turbine-powered HH-60 Seahawk, began to rotate. Sailors ran across the deck, donning helmets and vests.

Before they ducked through the door that led onto the enclosed hangar deck, Maxwell stopped to peer out at the harbor. An oily slick was spreading out from where the gig had exploded. Flotsam littered the surface of the channel.

Even before the debris had finished splashing back into the water, Hassan Fayez was dragging the launcher back toward the open hatch. On the deck lay the three extra missiles that he had not needed. Not yet.

Move! he yelled at Yousef. Get the motor running! We’ll run for the fishing wharf.

They had lied to him. They had assured him that the wire-guided missile was invisible. They said no one would know where it had come from. Their escape would be easy because it would be hours before anyone understood how the gig had been destroyed.

The instant he launched the missile, he knew they had lied. The ungodly thing looked like a signal flare. Any idiot who happened to be watching the harbor would have seen it, and he would deduce that it had come from the dhow out there in the channel.

Yousef had the diesel motor popping and growling. Even at full throttle the puny engine pushed the dhow through the water like a barge.

The fishing village was their only haven. Once they reached the wharf, they could meld into the throng of boat people. Their dhow looked just like any of a hundred other such vessels. They could abandon it and scramble across the cluttered decks of the boats that were moored to each other. The inhabitants of the floating village could be counted on to feign ignorance when they were questioned. The only loyalty the ancient cult of Gulf sailors had was to each other.

The harbor was buzzing with new traffic. Hassan saw a helicopter lifting from the deck of the aircraft carrier. It was headed toward them. He wished now that he had not been so quick to stow the launcher and the extra rounds. The helicopter would be an easy target.

The helicopter was keeping its distance from the dhow. That was bad, Hassan thought. It meant they had already concluded that he was a threat. They would be summoning help on the radio.